


five times emma swan noticed she was in love with regina mills

by coalitiongirl_ficlets (coalitiongirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl_ficlets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First realizations over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five times emma swan noticed she was in love with regina mills

The first time is  _ridiculous_ because what the fuck, Regina might’ve saved them from that death curse but she’d also  _cast_ it; Regina might’ve smiled at her and apologized (and been so…sweet? is sweet a word she can use to describe Regina? Emma thinks again about anxious fingers fumbling with each other and the way Regina’s eyes kind of crinkle at the edges when she’d smiled at her at Granny’s and yeah. Sweet.) but Regina has also killed Archie, probably.

Maybe.

And the realization comes with the moment that Emma storms from Gold’s shop, with the moment she paces as her parents confer with the Blue Fairy, with the moment that she storms up to Regina’s stoop and sees the trust in her eyes, with the moment she’s thrown back by a furious mother. Because if her heart feels like it’s breaking, there had to have been something more than just hate and distrust there.

But it’s absurd. She hates Regina. Sure, she’s a little obsessed with her and she’d thought that Regina had been different since the curse had broken, but she also  _hates_ her, can give her a chance and still despise her. Her heart is breaking for Henry, that’s all. She tells herself so until she begins to believe it. (And if her first thought when Archie reappears is of Regina, that has no bearing on her feelings. Right. Okay.)

* * *

The second time is all about magic and only magic, and whatever emotions come from it are all about magic as well. And yeah, also the end of the world, standing in a cave with her parents watching Regina falling apart and suddenly she has a solution.  _You may not be strong enough but maybe we are._

And then there’s power rushing through her and they’re both shaking with the force of the magic and Regina’s eyes are wide with wonder at what they’re capable of. The whole world freezes and whirls around her like static noise and the only thing she can see is Regina and those eyes that stare at her as though they’ve never had a partner before. She thinks,  _I could be your partner_.

But the world has always seemed to close in on Regina, even when they’d hated each other, so this sensation of ecstasy and fascination and pure adoration is just a high from the magic. Regina is hazy beauty in her eyes, and she smiles a real smile after they stop the trigger and Emma can’t stop grinning about it. Which is…left over from the magic. Right.

She silently vows to avoid doing magic with Gold, judging from the persistent desire to kiss Regina that won’t be quieted.

* * *

The third time is standing in the middle of town after Neverland (and she silently congratulates herself for managing the whole of Neverland without entertaining absurd thoughts. Because Regina had walked around for a week with her shirt unbuttoned and Emma had been careful not to want anything more than to maybe lick her way down to Regina’s cleavage. Which  _so_ doesn’t count as anything because  _hello_ , Regina?). And Regina says,  _I have to say goodbye to the thing I love most_ and it’s like…that moment when someone waves at you and you wave back and they’re actually waving at the person behind you. It’s a moment of  _what? what? what?_ and then realization.

And for an instant she thinks that Regina really is talking about her, that Regina  _loves_ her, and she’s overwhelmed with relief. Because this is real, whatever this thing is that she’s refused to concede, Regina is going to take the reins on this and she can just…accept it. For however much longer they have. She breathes deeply and stares at Regina and Regina stares at her and then she understands. _Henry_.

She’ll laugh about it later, maybe, when they’re over the town line and lost to Storybrooke forever, when second (third?) chances don’t ache so deeply and Regina is just someone they’d both known and lov…when Regina is just someone.

_Happy endings aren’t always what we think they’ll be_ , Mary Margaret says.  _Look around you._ Unbidden, Emma’s eyes flicker to Regina’s, and they’re trapped in each other’s gazes again. Maybe they could have been friends. That’s what Emma mourns now,  _friendship_.

* * *

The fourth time is, of all the improbable moments, watching Regina kiss Henry on the forehead. Because the shockwave rolls out and this means Henry will  _stay_ , Henry will never accept running away now. Henry doesn’t run. Because this means that Regina will never allow them to go. Because she sometimes feels as though she’s only good for saving anyone when it’s kissing Henry’s forehead that does the trick, and now she isn’t even the only one who can do it.

But all she can think in that moment is,  _Henry has a mother who loves him_. It’s something she’s always known but somehow it’s never rung this clear until this moment, it’s never meant this much until it’s Regina gaping at Henry and Emma gaping at Regina and she’d given him up and he’d had his best chance.

And Emma knows about the Evil Queen and she knows who Regina had been, dark and selfish and bitter. Emma knows that Henry had grown up with love, love he’d rejected and then embraced again, and Emma knows that Regina’s kind of a hardass but she’d also learned how to  _feel_  again for Henry, learned how to fight to be the person he’d needed and learned how to love the way that he’d craved. Regina’s love had just swept through them all and Emma wants to cry with how wonderful it is and how much she only wants to love it herself.

And maybe that’s just an effect of true love’s kiss, that it makes you love the same way. Maybe that’s what it is that draws her to Regina, that keeps her fixated on Regina and begging for her friendship two weeks later after she’d screwed everything up for her. Maybe she’s just caught up in all that love for so long that she can’t remember that she isn’t supposed to fall in love with Regina.

* * *

The fifth time isn’t even a moment. It isn’t the dramatic end of their lives or great betrayal or separation or a grand true love’s kiss. It’s sitting in Regina’s office while they make plans for Operation Mongoose and Henry is scribbling in his notebook on his lap and Regina peers over his shoulder and says,  _No, it’s lie, not lay._ It’s the stupidest little minute thing that just proves what a pedant Regina can be and Emma is struck dumb with awe.

Because it’s Regina, hair falling down in front of her face, eyes bright and focused on Henry, her tongue poking out of her mouth as she studies his work. It’s Regina dressed in some expensive power suit and swapping between magic and comic terminology with every breath. It’s the former Evil Queen trying to change her fate and letting Emma in to join her in her first big mission with Henry since Emma had come to town. It’s  _Regina_ , casual and at peace and yeah, a pedantic snob, and all Emma can think about is how much she loves every tiny bit of who Regina Mills is.

There are no more excuses. No more reasons to hide. And Emma tears her eyes away from Regina (who’d been watching her oddly when she’d been staring and is now- when Emma peeks- smiling at her in a curious way) and buries herself in the mission to take back Regina’s happy ending, the beginnings of a peaceful smile curling into her lips.


End file.
